Saturday mid-afternoon news digest: kiss kiss bang bang edition

Minnesota 2020 recommends buying Minnesota-made products for your sweetie on Valentine's Day and provides a Made in Minnesota Gift Guide to help you do just that. Bluestem Prairie will happily accept Minnesota-made chocolate, Shakers rose vodka, and other items from our adoring readers if they ask us if we want anything three times in the time-honored Minnesota custom. We wouldn't be calling these things gifts now, don't you know.

Now the bang bang part of the picture: Tim Walz campaigned in 2006 as a gun rights supporter, receiving an "A" from the NRA-ILA (Gutknecht, as the incumbent with a good record, was endorsed).

Now the Star Tribune reports in Controversial gun law is now a target that Walz, along with rural DFL congressmen Peterson and Oberstar, have signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of District of Columbia (D.C.) and Mayor Adrian Fenty v. Dick Anthony Heller. While many of our progressive friends disagree, we too support gun rights.

The Worthington Globe reports Walz to host energy summit in Windom on Monday morning. The summit is free and open to the public. We posted details and directions here.

Speaking of details and directions, the Winona Daily News reported 3 congressional candidates criticize Walz at WSU forum. The lead:

The U.S. military must avoid setting a firm timetable for leaving Iraq, said three Republicans vying to challenge Democratic Rep. Tim Walz in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.

Brian Davis, Randy Demmer and Dick Day were at a candidates’ forum Thursday night at Winona State University, sponsored by the College Republicans. . . .

. . . “We need to maintain the political will to see this thing through,” said Demmer, a state representative from Hayfield.

A withdrawal date “is the same thing as announcing a date of surrender,” said Davis, a Mayo Clinic doctor from Rochester.

Day — a state senator from Owatonna — was the only candidate to speak specifically of withdrawal, saying he doesn’t envision “a permanent occupation” of Iraq.

“We know it will wind down … but we need to be tough,” said Day, who added that “we all should be nervous” about terrorist attacks after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The WDN doesn't give a head count, but a friend who was there reports taking attendance: "Sixteen of the most die--hard Republicans from the community, and twenty students."

Perhaps the adoring throngs were misdirected by the subject line for the email sent out by Brian Davis's campaign:

Subject: Congressional Candidate Forum Tomorrow Night in Rochester!

This information might have made it difficult  for potential audience members to locate Winona State University.

KTTC-TV reports that the stimulus package is Signed, Sealed, and Delivered. The station asks Walz where the money's coming form.  He answers:

Everybody we talked to in Rochester seems pretty excited about this rebate check, but most people we talked to had no idea where it was coming from.

Here's what Representative Tim Walz had to say, "This is adding to the debt so if they really want to take this to the logical conclusion then they're borrowing from their children to fix an economic downturn that's been caused by the last seven years of this administration."

Seeing that much money show up in your mailbox might seem like a good idea, but Representative Walz says, it's really a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Walz says, "It should take a little of the sting off, but I don't want to portray this as any type of silver bullet or magic solution because it's not; but if it allows people to get a little breather before we starting making the changes needed to bring our economy back then that's a good thing."

The Rochester Post Bulletin asks Will stimulus rebate stir you to spend?  Walz is mentioned. Speaking of money, the PB says Walz, Kline build up sizable cash reserves.

The paper also reports Loved ones mourn St. Charles teenager killed on a bad stretch of Highway 14 during icy conditions. She was 17.

 The New Ulm Journal editorial board writes in McCain wins delegates, but not their hearts:

But while McCain has won a lot of delegates, he still hasn’t won the heart of the party’s main core, the conservatives. McCain has strayed too many times from the conservative fold on different issues for die-hard conservatives to forgive him, let alone feel comfortable with him. Ann Coulter, the conservative pit bull, actually said she’d vote for Hillary Clinton before she’d vote for McCain.

. . . So what does that mean for Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has been fluttering around McCain on several campaign stops and is considered a possibility to become McCain’s running mate?

Pawlenty became a conservative darling after balancing the state’s $4.5 billion budget deficit early in his career without raising income taxes. That reputation suffered a little when the governor had to accept an increase in the tobacco tax — er, user fee — in the last state budget.

But conservative credentials aside, does Pawlenty have a big enough name and appeal to win over the likes of Coulter? We suspect McCain will be looking for someone with more appeal — someone along the line of Romney, if he and Romney can heal the bruises they’ve given each other.

We also wonder if Pawlenty will be looking to burnish his conservative reputation by being extra tough on DFLers and less willing to compromise in the coming legislative session. If so, it could be another of the sessions Minnesotans have come to experience and loathe over the past few years.

Comments

[Phoenix Woman]

Rogue Chocolatier, my dear. Pick 'em up at Surdyks downtown. Delish!